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Compact and low to the ground, the two seater was so quiet we wondered if the engine was even running as the wheels rolled down the hill. "A motor," Drori corrected. "It doesn't have an engine."

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I have seen similar statements from other Tesla employees, and I understand trying to differentiate the Tesla with the terminology. However, does anyone else think that correcting everyone on this term will be a losing battle? In the vernacular, 'engine' is the thing that makes your car go, no matter it's power source.

Of course this could just be a 'tin' foil hat conspiracy that occurs to me while driving my 'steam'roller and 'dial'ing my phone using a pencil 'lead'

In the UK, engine always refers to an ICE or gas turbine, whereas motors almost always run on electricity. You would never hear anyone say "electric engine", but you might occasionally hear the phrase "petrol/diesel motor".

But I suspect that wasn't always the case - hence a motorbike (which has an engine...) and more rarely these days, motorcar (the latter sounds quaint and almost legalese).

An engine is a mechanical device that produces some form of output from a given input.

An engine whose purpose is to produce kinetic energy output from a fuel source is called a prime mover; alternatively, a motor is a device which produces kinetic energy from a preprocessed "fuel" (such as electricity, a flow of hydraulic fluid or compressed air).

A motor car (automobile) has a starter motor and motors to drive pumps (fuel, power steering, etc) – but the power plant that propels the car is called an engine. The term 'motor' was originally used to distinguish the new internal combustion engine -powered vehicles from earlier vehicles powered by a steam engine (as in steam roller and motor roller).

Yes terminology is important. As a scientist, I know that precision in communication is crucial. I also used to be a grammar Nazi. But there is often a difference between the technical and common definition of a word. And even between different technical fields, the same word can have different definitions. More and more, I've come to realize that language is fluid and there isn't really much of a point arguing these sorts of semantics.

If you went back to the original meaning of the word engine (as my couple years of high school Latin can attest), it would be fine for an electric motor. These days (especially in the context of transportation) the word engine implies some sort of combustion engine, so certain people like to make the distinction. But to go up to a lay person and say an electric car has no engine is just being unnecessarily confusing. Fortunately, the meaning of the word motor is more general* and more obvious. A motor is something that imparts motion. In space flight, often the individual rocket engines are referred to as motors. (This can confuse some people since, for them, the word implies something spinning.) Clearly the word motor is ok to use when referring to an ICE. So I say if someone insists that you use the word motor instead of engine, that person should really specify that it's an electric motor (e-motor is a good term to promote), since motor driven could mean it's a rocket!! :wink:

Then there is the old 'gas pedal' / 'throttle' nomenclature issue as well.

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I think it makes sense to correct the terms "gas pedal" and "throttle" since we do want to emphasize that an electric car is not using liquid fuel, and we have the word "accelerator" which works perfectly fine. ("I'm sure the manual will indicate which lever is the velocitator and which is the deceleratrix."- M. Burns)

"Gas pedal" may persist, though, since terms coined for a particular function within a type of technology can often stick around for the analogous function when the technology changes.
And oddly enough, "throttle" may eventually be ok in this context by its own right. Technically a throttle is something that regulates the flow of a fluid (liquid or gas), but the trend in the vernacular is that it's being generalized to mean regulate anything. This might be because some people can't tell that the sentence, "Throttle back your enthusiasm." contains a metaphor. Ironically, this brings "throttle" closer to it's earlier, pre-technical meaning of to suppress or choke.

Also, 'quick' vs 'fast'. When someone says a Tesla is 'faster' than a Ferrari I wince because to me 'fast' is top speed, and 'quick' is 0-60 acceleration.

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Quick and fast essentially mean the same thing, so not much sense making that distinction. However, to say "A Tesla is faster (or quicker for that mater) than a Ferrari." is misleading marketing spin. To be accurate they should just specify "shorter 0-60 time" or whatever metric they're using.

* "general" is one of those words that has a different meaning for scientists than it does for laymen.

Quick and fast essentially mean the same thing, so not much sense making that distinction.

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Perhaps by strict dictionary definition, but in common usage I find that quick is typically about acceleration, and fast is about top speed. Because enough people think about them that way it is probably good practice to make sure you don't say "Tesla is faster than other Supercars"

Perhaps by strict dictionary definition, but in common usage I find that quick is typically about acceleration, and fast is about top speed. Because enough people think about them that way it is probably good practice to make sure you don't say "Tesla is faster than other Supercars"

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Well again it's semantics. Quick and fast are non-technical terms and (sadly) most people don't understand the distinction between acceleration and velocity vectors. In the context of cars, quick and fast may attain different and specific definitions (in which case they actually become technical terms). But I'd argue that it's not yet so well defined. As is good practice, one should consider the audience when communicating. So to say, "The Tesla Roadster is quicker than a Ferrari." with out further clarification to the general public is still misleading, in my opinion.

Engine is from the Latin ingenium, which referred to one’s ability to create things, one’s native genius; it comes from a root meaning ‘create; beget’ from which we get words like genetic, and is also the source of ingenious and ingenuity (engineer derives from a related word).

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Motor had quite different origins, coming from the Latin movere, ‘to move’. It was first employed in English in the sense of ‘instigator’, or something that causes motion, often in a figurative sense, as of God as being the cause of the motion of the heavens.

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All this said, I guess if we need to distinguish between electric and combustion propulsion, motor and engine are good enough.

I understand that you are confused with the fact that under the hood of your car there is only a storage compartment. It is called a frunk for front trunk and the ENGINE of your car is located between the rear wheels

"However, technically, the two words have different meanings. An engine is a device that burns or otherwise consumes fuel, changing its chemical composition, whereas a motor is a device driven by electricity, which does not change the chemical composition of its energy source."

An engine changes the chemical composition of its fuel to the mechanical energy, and the electric motor does not. The only chemical reaction is in the battery, but the electricity that drives the electric motor does not change at all. But the fuel mixture that goes into the engine and combusts does.

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